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Best place to list cars under 10k/ advice for a new small dealer

OBMotors

Green Pea
Oct 5, 2022
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obaydah
I recently opened(am in the process) of opening a used car dealer in Baton Rouge, LA. I have been in the business for 10+ years and previously was managing a car lot. I have been out of the business for close to a year now. Main area where I need guidance is marketing. In the past I have sold 60-75% of vehicles from craigslist and Facebook marketplace but have found their effectiveness diminished slowly over the past couple of years, and get less leads and more spam. I have tried Premium sites like CarGurus cars.com and Carfax but they have produced little results for me so I couldn't the high cost. Im not sure if these websites are better now.

My average sale price is $6,000, and most cars are listed in the $4,000-$8,000 range, most customers pay cash, I do not do any financing but have a local lender I have a relationship with that I do business with from time to time. I generally have very competitive pricing since I have repair the vehicles and they are above average deals and cars are in good condition. I am still building inventory but will have 20-25 cars on the lot.

What/where would be recommended in terms of marketing or places to list cars?

Any advice for me as a new dealer would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to message me if there are other things you think may be important such as financing.
 
Anything below $8,000 is Facebook for sure. Car Gurus also does well with those type of vehicles.

I know you said that those 2 sources no longer seem to work. Is that the price point you were dealing with when you left the business in 2020? Remember, there was a period of time before you left the business (pandemic) that was really strange in terms of what did and did not work.
 
Anything below $8,000 is Facebook for sure. Car Gurus also does well with those type of vehicles.

I know you said that those 2 sources no longer seem to work. Is that the price point you were dealing with when you left the business in 2020? Remember, there was a period of time before you left the business (pandemic) that was really strange in terms of what did and did not work.
Yes alway sold the same price range of cars. They still bring in some leads but a fraction of what they were 3+ years ago for craigslist and maybe 1-2+ for Facebook. Craigslist seems completely dead, I also notice I see very few car listings on craigslist in my market. I don't think CarGurus is very popular here but I will take another look at it. How much of % my sales should be online vs walk ins in your opinion? Maybe my expectations for online is too high.
 
Yes alway sold the same price range of cars. They still bring in some leads but a fraction of what they were 3+ years ago for craigslist and maybe 1-2+ for Facebook. Craigslist seems completely dead, I also notice I see very few car listings on craigslist in my market. I don't think CarGurus is very popular here but I will take another look at it. How much of % my sales should be online vs walk ins in your opinion? Maybe my expectations for online is too high.
In my opinion, they're all online. I've had people that live less than 1 block from my dealership find the vehicle online. I believe we are all better off assuming the customer has seen the vehicle online.
 
Last question. Are the vast majority from online sales from listings, or business website traffic? I have a website but it mainly is just a place I can direct people to see full inventory, I don't think people stumble across the website without seeing a listing.
 
Last question. Are the vast majority from online sales from listings, or business website traffic? I have a website but it mainly is just a place I can direct people to see full inventory, I don't think people stumble across the website without seeing a listing.
Your own website should get you far and away more leads than any other source.

You may want to look at a different website vendor if people are not stumbling across it. That is what website providers are supposed to do.
 
I recently opened(am in the process) of opening a used car dealer in Baton Rouge, LA. I have been in the business for 10+ years and previously was managing a car lot. I have been out of the business for close to a year now. Main area where I need guidance is marketing. In the past I have sold 60-75% of vehicles from craigslist and Facebook marketplace but have found their effectiveness diminished slowly over the past couple of years, and get less leads and more spam. I have tried Premium sites like CarGurus cars.com and Carfax but they have produced little results for me so I couldn't the high cost. Im not sure if these websites are better now.

My average sale price is $6,000, and most cars are listed in the $4,000-$8,000 range, most customers pay cash, I do not do any financing but have a local lender I have a relationship with that I do business with from time to time. I generally have very competitive pricing since I have repair the vehicles and they are above average deals and cars are in good condition. I am still building inventory but will have 20-25 cars on the lot.

What/where would be recommended in terms of marketing or places to list cars?

Any advice for me as a new dealer would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to message me if there are other things you think may be important such as financing.
Hello OB Motors, hope you are well.

The best ad investments that you can do based on what you are looking to accomplish would be Google VLA's (or shopping ads) and optimizing both YouTube as well as your Google Business Profile. Also having video VDP's works better than simply having photos. There is a app that my company offers that can help with this. It is very inexpensive and comes with a free SEO component.

If you search for 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Wilmington DE, you will see what I'm talking about. Those videos for Diver showing one page 1 of Google are free with my service.

Kind regards,
Tony G
 
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You have a Carsforsale website. The SEO is actually pretty good with Carsforsale, since they acquired Carbase a couple years ago.

Until you get some inventory, you are not going to get much lead activity. I understand that you are rebuilding and ramping up your inventory. You will get there.

Don't invest in anything to drive website traffic when you have 3 vehicles in inventory. Any money you spend will be a waste.
 
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You have a Carsforsale website. The SEO is actually pretty good with Carsforsale, since they acquired Carbase a couple years ago.

Until you get some inventory, you are not going to get much lead activity. I understand that you are rebuilding and ramping up your inventory. You will get there.

Don't invest in anything to drive website traffic when you have 3 vehicles in inventory. Any money you spend will be a waste.
Thanks for the replies. I want to do more with the online traffic. I will have a handful of cars ready and advertised in the next couple of weeks after that I will reach out.
 
@OBMotors Craigslist seems completely dead,

This is certainly not the case. I sell plenty of cars on Craigslist. I think with the current economy and financial issues the country is facing, more and more people are looking to sites like craigslist because they are A) looking for cheaper deals, and B) getting forced into buying from private parties rather than dealers; but the eyeballs are there, so that is where inventory needs to be. I bet the site is busier now then last few years and it was a fairly steady decline since Facebook and all the other app based marketplaces popped up.